Chương 42: Protect and Defend

As The Last of Us neared completion Jin and Hashimi had decided that they wanted the opinion of the soldiers on how an additional scenario consisting of just the fighting would work out best in their eyes. Jin was a bit sceptical that the mortal soldiers would have too many valuable things to say. That wasn't his prejudice speaking, but simply the fact that the education standard in this world was basically non-existent.

Unless you were born into a noble or merchant family, most people didn't even learn how to read. Still, it was an attempt that was worth making. Especially as he and Hashimi desperately needed a break during which they actually left his apartment. The number of all-nighters that they had pulled together - wait, that sounded dirty - all-nighters spent working, was ridiculously high. They hadn't even had a day off, let alone a full weekend.

The only day on which they'd worked less than 12 hours had been the one on which Jin had scammed Lung Junior, entitled idiot that he was, from his data. Precious, precious data. Walking down the mountain to the army encampment after a long time, it had been a while since the soldiers had arrived and they'd first gone down to analyse the zombies, almost felt like a miniature vacation.

"The fruits, they're so vibrant and fragrant," Hashimi wondered aloud as they stumbled their way down the mountain on shaky legs and barely functioning dopamine reward systems. With fruits, she was referring to the wild fruit orchard growing at the base of the mountain. There were many fruits Jin recognised, some from his past life, some from the memories of the previous owner of his current body. Some, neither of them had ever seen. Purple bananas twice the size of a normal banana.

A literal heart-shaped fruit, yes, literal, that pulsed on the bone-white tree that jutted out of the ground like the rib of a dead and decaying whale. There was even something that looked exactly like an apple tree, but when you got closer, the apples disappeared, and it was revealed that all the fruits had actually been serpents under an illusion.

"The sky, it's so bright," Jin wondered aloud as if he'd never seen it before. It had been a few days, at least. There was an option to have food delivered to the apartment, which they had taken advantage of these last few days. You could say what you wanted about the Illusion Room Sect, but they knew how to take care of their antisocial loners stuck on a tight schedule.

"My eyes burn, but I like it!" Hashimi exclaimed happily, causing Jin to look over and see that she was staring directly at the celestial object. He almost wanted to warn her not to do that, until he remembered that in a new world, it wasn't necessarily the same things which were unwise. He shut his mouth with a click; she probably knew better.

"Jin, I think I've gone blind!" Hashimi exclaimed a few minutes later, causing the boy to whip his head around and stare at the girl who was now tearing up with open eyes and holding a hand in front of her face, trying to make out its shape.

"It's ok, I can finish the rest of the project," he reassured her, causing her perhaps defunct eyes to well up even more.

"Why did I agree to join this sect?" she muttered.

"I can't imagine that other cultivators have it this hard." -/- A few thousand miles away, a certain outer disciple of the Mad Monks Sect screamed in rage as Dragonslayer Ornstein once again made him experience the meaning of skill gap. -/- Even further west, an unnamed disciple of the Blood Curling Torture Scream Sect whimpered in agony as he started his tenth year of the Death of Thousand Nightmares punishment that he'd been condemned to for accidentally looking an Elder in the eye.

He was 2 meters tall, and the Elder was a 1. 45 meters short woman. It was an accident! -/-"Yeah, they really treat us like dogs here," Jin muttered with a complaint.

"At the Mad Monks Sect, where I visited, they just have to train their martial arts and advance in cultivation. Elder Flower is making me do all of that, while I'm also making scenarios."

"Yeah, we should, like, make a group or something. Fight for our rights," Hashimi muttered, her sight seemingly having returned as she wasn't complaining about that anymore.

"Like a union?" Jin asked.

"What now?" -/- An inner disciple at the Frost Fangs Secret Mountain Dew Water Drop Life Liquid Sect opened his eyes for the first time after years of cultivation. The world blinded him, but he'd finally managed to break through to the middle stage of the Foundation Establishment.

He'd only had a year left before his low cultivation talent would have deemed him unworthy of receiving the support of the sect, after which he would have been used to feed the Spirit Frost Wolves that the core disciples were training up for their dual cultivation technique. -/-"What do we have to lose, but our chains?" Hashimi said convincingly with fervour in her voice. Jin suddenly shushed her, seeing that they'd reached the entry of the army encampment.

"Later, comrade, but first, we must work to eat. Then, we will work to be free," he said reassuringly as they both took a bracing moment at the foot of the mountain to enjoy the air that one could breathe with no struggling. This last moment of respite, before they started working again. It was moments like these that made it all worth it, Jin thought. Also, the fact that by being useful, Elder Flower would likely protect him in the case of a shitstorm. Probably…

"Enough rest for these weary bones," Hashimi eventually muttered, putting up a hand to her face to fix her brown hair.

"Let us talk to that soldier," she said wearily and pointed to one of the two men standing guard at the entry to the camp. The man obviously saw the gesture, looked around, then pointed at himself as if asking if he'd been meant with that. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Jin nodded for Hashimi, who was currently daydreaming about releasing the chains from the proletariat and leading up a worker's revolution as the soldier in question quaked in his boots at their approach.

"Halt, in the name of the Empire," the admittedly unimpressive soldier recounted, sounding unconvinced himself, as they stepped up. The other soldiers held out a sword, which this one was supposed to meet with his own sword to form a cross. The other soldier gave an unimpressed look at his compatriot.

"Actually, can we ask some questions?" Hashimi asked politely, which, if anything, made the man shake even more.

"You may pass," the shaking soldiers stuttered, basically sounding like a rock being shaken in a tin can with the way he was filling out that armour with his skinny body.

"Ignore him," the other soldier muttered.

"If you have any questions, you can ask me, the name's Yang," he introduced himself. He was a more average-looking fellow, albeit a bit old to be a simple guardsman in the army. Jin and Hashimi turned their attention towards him before exchanging a look and trying to see who would start the conversation.

'You're the social one,' Jin shot with his eyes.

'You're the team lead,' Hashimi shot back with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

'Consider yourself being promoted then,' Jin replied right back with an arch of his left brow.

'If I'm promoted, then I promote you right back and demote myself,' Hashimi glared.

'No take backsies,' Jin sent back while touching a finger to his nose. Hashimi tried to follow, but she was a step too late. The soldier looked at the two of them with dull black eyes. It was very obvious he was trying not to sigh and roll them. He looked like he went through this a lot.

"Fine," Hashimi started, before coughing into her hand.

"I'm Hashimi, inner disciple of the Illusion Room Sect." The man looked doubtfully at her beige robes.

"I was wondering, actually, if I could ask a few questions about how the soldiers would prefer the scenario to be structured," she said.

"Sorry, esteemed cultivator, but what scenario?" the soldier asked politely, causing both Jin and Hashimi to pause and share a look. Had the army staff actually bothered explaining to the soldiers what they were here for? If not, was it within the range of acceptability for the two of them to spill the beans? Probably from the view of the general, soldiers simply had to follow orders, they didn't have to know much.

"The zombies that you captured, we're creating an illusion in which you can practice fighting against them," Jin said. Yang straightened his posture at these words, in surprise, his chitin armour clacked at the move.

"Why are we fighting them?" he asked.

"Yeah, why are we fighting them?" the other soldier, who had previously been shaking, piped up.

"Because the border incursion this time will feature an army of zombies, so it would be good for practice," Jin trailed off. Yang had long since sheathed his sword back into his scabbard and was now doubtfully crossing his arms.

"Are you sure?" he asked doubtfully. Jin brought up a hand to muss up his hair and looked at the sky. How nice would it be to be a bird, he wondered as he saw a crane making its way elegantly through the sky.

"It was confirmed by the scouts," Hashimi jumped in, saving him.

"So we were wondering to get the opinion of the people who will be using the illusions, seeing what would be easier for them." Yang held up a hand.

"I know who you want to talk to," he said decisively.

"Could you take them to the training sergeant?" he asked his partner, who shakily nodded his head.

"Good," Yang nodded.

"Then I'll stay here in case someone attacks the camp, you take them to Sarge." There seemed to be a system of, if not rank, then at least seniority, as the younger of the two quickly set off, not even bidding the two cultivators to follow.

"Any reason you're so nervous?" Hashimi asked, completely lacking in tact, as she hit the step behind the soldier. The man flinched before stuttering.

"W-ell, if your excellence, uh, asks, the-there was a cultivator here a few weeks ago who threatened to tell my superior that I deserve to be decommissioned in dishonour for barring his path."

"That means you were just doing your job," Hashimi complained in his stead. The man perked up at that, leading the way a bit more slowly now. They were passing through the city of tents in a different direction from the one Jin had gone in the past to see the zombies.

"Ye-yes, then he said it wasn't worth his time and kicked me in the shin," the soldier said in an affronted voice. Jin and Hashimi shared an incredulous look.

"Did he happen to have non-beige robes, fancy, long hair and a sneer on his face, like he just stepped in shit?" Jin asked curiously. Their guide looked back at them in astonishment.

"How did you know?" he asked in surprise.

"Lucky guess," Jin muttered. Grunting and the clack and clang of weapons started resounding through the area of the camp they were in. The place they had arrived at was the first open space that Jin had seen in the army encampment. It was a rather large, rather well-hidden field empty of tents which was about the size of two football fields. The activity on the field answered the question if the army ever trained its soldiers.

They obviously did as there were at least a hundred of them present, swinging around swords in large or small groups under the rather loud and harsh instructions of some drill sergeants. The soldiers were dressed in their full black regalia, likely to simulate real battle conditions, which couldn't have been pleasant under the rather unforgiving sun that was out today. The trainers, meanwhile, wore an interesting combination of what appeared to be linen red pants and wide-brimmed shirts.

It looked more comfortable, but perhaps that was due to necessity, as the trainer always worked longer hours than the trainee. After all, they usually had more students and sessions per day. The soldier they'd picked up at the gate took them to a similarly red-robed older man who was supervising the whole kerfuffle with a keen look and shouting out the occasional instruction.

"Aktash, you scallywag, you're not scheduled for today," the older man said in a very impressively loud voice when he saw the three of them approach. The now-named Aktash shook in his boots once, before sputtering out, "Sir! They want to ask some questions in regards to… I'll let the esteemed cultivators explain themselves. Have to go back to my post," he said before promptly running off.

"I think he might have been a bit nervous," Hashimi whispered to Jin, conspiratorially leaning into his ear.

"Head-Sergeant Lei is my name, what can I do for the two of you?" the red-robed man said, before looking the two Illusion Room cultivators up and down.

"Perhaps some training?" he asked. The man, despite his age, had about twice as many muscles as Jin and Hashimi possessed together, so much that his red robes could barely restrain him. The slightly more disrespectful tone indicated that the man was also a cultivator of some sort. This was further supported by the fact that he moved with a somewhat supernatural fluidity and that most ranks with the prefix Head were reserved for people who had cultivated at least to some extent.

In military institutions, at least, where martial prowess was an important part of the CV. In civil government, there was probably space for talented and smart mortals. Jin hoped at least…

"We were wondering, actually, if we could pose some questions to someone with a bit more of an idea of how the soldiers who are the end target of the scenario we're working on function. You know, just to see if we can get some inspiration and tailor some solutions for the target audience. Let them decide if we're fifty-fifty on an issue since their opinion matters more in some cases," Jin said with a sigh.

Lei paused and looked at them as if they were aliens who'd just descended from heaven and told him they needed to anally probe his aunt's cow, Betty.

"That's interesting," he said haltingly, before shaking his head, his grey hair flying around.

"Why not! Let it not be said that Lei cannot answer these simple questions." He gave a boisterous laugh.

"Are you saying we're the first ones here?" Jin asked incredulously. Lung Junior obviously wouldn't care, but what about the others? He himself had considered coming before, but considering he wouldn't have been able to compete in the traditional competition, he'd needed to do The Last of Us regardless of what anyone else thought. Now that they had Lung Junior's zombies coming here, it made sense. Lei gave them a weird look again.

"Of course you are," he said as if confused as to why they even had to ask. Jin for his part put a hand up to his face and dragged it down, distorting his eyelids, his nose and his lips. This garnered concerned looks from both Hashimi and the head sergeant.

'I was reborn into a fantasy world not to become a legendary immortal but to introduce the concept of market research to a bunch of semi-literate apes?!' Was the light novel title flashing through Jin's mind? He gritted his teeth.

"Maybe we should start from the beginning," he suggested. Lei shrugged.

"I got time."

"First question, do the soldiers even know what they're doing here?"